Saturday, August 17, 2013

Sunday, June 30, 2013

Four years ago I have completed a short film called "Humpty Dumpty is Scrambled". The idea was born in 2007(6 years ago) on a cold summer night, while I working as rough animator, in Halifax, NS. I would be lying if I said that I found it, in many ways it had found me.
For some time I was trying to conceive a story where a main character would be familiar, yet not clearly understood. Most importantly the character had to die. Familiar - because it would make my job a lot easier when I would be asked what I was working on."Humpty Dumpty, but new and exciting! Oh and its a musical!" became my elevator speech. Not clearly understood - because I could use the opportunity to try and overhaul what the audience assumes they know about the said character. Death and/or Sacrifice was key though. Death leads to loss, reflection - and that is exactly what I wanted. Finding the combination of these three elements wasn't easy. And then, it came.
At that time the room that I was renting was all covered in sketches. I would tape any good sketch I made to a wall and because I was drawing 6-8 hours a day soon I ran out of wall. I started taping drawings to a ceiling just above my bed. If you would have seen my room at that time I'm sure you would think I was mentally ill. And maybe I was. In fact, it is quite likely that the atmosphere I was creating around me in the room had finally laid an egg in my brain.
Before I started the pre-production on the film, the idea was marinating in my head for a year and a half. For a few months I didn't make any drawings of the main character or any concept art. Instead, I started collecting anything that I though was useful to a project - small cars, posters, history books.

It is hard to describe the excitement of working on this project and the frustration of trying to cram so much in into a 3 minute short. As much as I have tried, I was never able to fit the whole story I wanted to tell. Early in the beginning of production I decided to show only the last chapter in the story - when Humpty decides to climb the wall. With so much left out, this project still haunts me. I have never stopped working on it. Every year a make adjustments to the story and every year it's getting closer to being done. Which brings me to the scene in this post. Like some of the drawings which I have been posting in the last few years - these are the bits and pieces I hope to put together one day. This project has driven me to meet so many interesting people, travel and every single job since I graduated from college. I am its child as much as it is mine.